"Things just go on. Lot of life is like that. I look back over fifty years of life and I wonder where the years went. I guess they went like that, without me noticing much. A man's memory might have only a hundred clear days in it and he has lived thousands. Can't do much about that. We have our store of days and we spend them like forgetful drunkards. I ain't got not argument with it, just saying it is so."

This voice is just so vivid...

"When you are running away from something, it often ends up coming with you, especially if the thing you are running away from is your own behaviour."

Knew I could rely on Will Schwalbe to get me thinking!

"You cannot always keep yourself away from things that hurt you [...] doesn't it take greater strength to walk a mile in pain that seven miles in none?"

Oh this writing!! Am not quite sure what I'm going to do with myself when I finish this book. I foresee a book hangover...

My #firstreadof2017 is this beauty! Taken me far too long to pick this up.

So a paperback's worth of awesome arrived in the post this morning....

"He perfected [...] an antielitist populism and found a receptive audience especially among blue-collar white conservatives put out by the current recession."

This is....fiction....right? ?

"What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do."

Love that Bennett's Her Majesty swiftly encounters this common dilemma. A shared experience of all readers I feel!

Super excited to get this in the post today!! Have heard so many good things from friends in the US and from the @bookriot #allthebooks podcast! Can't wait to get reading!! 😄

Stayed up late and got up early to finish this one but it was more out of sheer determination than enjoyment. I just didn't get on with this despite it having all the ingredients I loved in Semple's 'Where'd You Go Bernadette'. Alas, I found her latest heroine Eleanor Flood TOO quirky, TOO crazy, TOO self-absorbed, TOO snarky. All of the acerbic venom but with none of the whimsical charm. Not for me. #readathon @DeweysReadathon

Book #2 done! A fabulous little slice of the uncanny with a sideline exploration of women's rights and mental health issues. And did I mention the ghost in the river? Quite a bit to fit into 130 pages but, for the most part, this is a satisfying psychological thriller in the mould of 'The Turn of the Screw' and 'The Yellow Wallpaper'. #readathon @DeweysReadathon

Book One of the #readathon is done! And what a fabulous choice to start with! This has the pure Atwood magic - a fabulous reimagining of Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' told with all the style and vibrancy of a master storyteller. Really captures the ethereal magic of the play with a contemporary twist. Now on to book number two!! @DeweysReadathon

@DeweysReadathon I am ready!! TBR is ready to roll. Now to arrange sufficient snackage and check the household supply of tea. #readathon #amreading #donotdisturb

If someone had told me I'd love a book about murder, rape and dark deeds that was set on a 19th century whaling ship, I wouldn't have believed them. Then 'The North Water' happened. Darkly sinister, blackly comic and sweary in the extreme, this is a brilliant read that captures a lost era and grips from the very first page. Trigger warnings for the above but, if you can handle the first chapter, you're in for a treat! One of my books of 2016.

"You Englishman! However strong the emotion, however fierce the fury, stronger still is the desire to smother it, to pretend it was never there at all."

Poirot hits the nail on the head and we're only 30 pages in!! ?

"Talking to Drax is like shouting into the blackness and expecting the blackness to answer back in kind."

The vivid language in this book is one of the major highlights for me. This passage perfectly summarises the character of both Henry Drax and Patrick Sumner, and there's that ever preset touch of dark humour there too. Brilliant.

"The words are all we have," he says. "If we give them up, we are no better than the beasts.

This book continues to provide brilliantly quotable sections of dialogue - although much of it is distinctly NSFW! This is a rare passage that is sans expletives.

Awesome #libraryhaul today! But which one to start first? 🤔

Oh my, this book. A heart-wrenching, lyrical tale that captures both the evil men can inflict on one another and the heights to which the soul can soar.

"If you can keep it, it is yours. Your property, slave or continent. The American imperative."
Oh my, this book. Reading has a great ability to take you out of your comfort zone and this just keeps pushing the boundaries in so many ways. Absolutely brilliant writing.

Some location appropriate #holidayreading courtesy of the British Library Crime Classics series. Love the covers on these - such handsome looking books. And great to rediscover 'lost' Golden Age crime writers!

Curling up on #NationalReadABookDay with this little slice of sinister. Been biding its time on the TBR for an age so when I was hunting the shelves for a pacy read, it immediately stood out. Loving it so far!

Heartbreakingly brilliant. Nuanced in its viewpoint, it doesn't offer any easy solutions to the epidemic of gun deaths amongst young people but it does highlight how a mixture of poverty, racism and a a lack of social mobility, combined with easy access to high calibre weaponry, creates a deadly melting pot that permits these deaths to happen. One of those rare books that really does need to be read by everybody.

My latest read. I have been warned I will cry many times whilst reading this book so am starting prepared...

Well there's definitely worse views to finish a book too...

Trying to narrow down my #holidayreading pile - I'm only going for a long weekend!! Any recommendations fellow book nerds?

Sooooo....I caved and bought this because I have no willpower. Am half excited and half nervous, especially as I've heard rather mixed things. Still, here goes!

A compelling yet deeply disturbing tale about a cult-like Family whose communal idyll goes horrifically wrong. Powerfully written yet I struggled to empathise with the narrator and failed to grasp The Family's enthralment by Freya, who is quite clearly deeply disturbed and is completely hateful to everyone for most of the book. An impressive debut but one that I do have very mixed feelings about.

Having such mixed feelings about this book. The writing is mesmerising and the story is very compelling but how the heck hasn't anyone realised that the woman leading this cult is as mad as a box of frogs already? Some of her actions are just pure abuse and it's really difficult to believe none of the other adults in the commune would step in to prevent it.

"When someone says something, something upsetting, it's just a sound, and the truth of things is very different, something far beyond the noise we make for it."

A brilliant, captivating coming of age tale that examines the root causes of prejudice, small town hypocrisy and the price of belonging. Deceptively light prose hides layers of complex social observation in this fantastic debut. One of my books of 2016 for sure.

Perfectly observed. The dialogue and the social observations in this book are just so sharp and precise. An insightful look at how communities can treat those deemed as 'other'.

My library orders arrived in!! Cannot wait to get started on these two lovelies - the only trouble is choosing which to start first!

So I'm definitely not going to make #24in48 for the @24in48 #readathon - but I have read loads more this weekend than I've managed in a while and this book has definitely helped cure my reading slump. I'd call that a success !

Kicking off the @24in48 #readathon with a few pages of this beauty before work.

My first bail of the year! This is so well written but I just found it too grim - like watching a car-crash in slow motion except it's happening with six people's lives. I might give this another go when in a different mood but, for now, this one's going back to the library.

So torn by this book. I'm halfway through and sometimes the writing is just so good. But when I put it down, I'm just not motivated to pick it back up. Tempted to maybe give something else a go and revisit this in a few days maybe....

Have been feeling too flu-d up to read but finally getting better and am back to my TBR. Come to me my pretties...

A stunning cover belies a dark heart in this twisted dystopian. Luscious prose contrasts with disturbing imagery as the characters are driven to act on their very basest instincts to survive. Beautiful and terrible in equal measure, this was a disturbing but fascinating read.

A passionate roar of a book that made me laugh out loud and boil with fury by equal measure. The misogyny and hate Lindy has had thrown at her made my blood boil but the frank, angry passion with which she responds to it is glorious to behold.

Lindy West on rape jokes in comedy: "If you want to talk about silencing, censorship, placing limits and consequences on speech, this is what it looks like." Yes Lindy West, yes it is - please keep shouting about. Did I mention I love this book already?

I was very wary picking this up - I've not had the best experiences with 'comic' Irish gangster novels in the past - but this is proving to be pace, darkly comic and a great look at the grim side of life post Celtic Tiger.

The cover quote gets it right! Reading this is an extraordinary experience filled with provocative imagery, surreal and compelling storytelling and a quiet intensity. Beautiful yet unsettling, this is a powerful novel about mental illness, personal freedom and societal taboo.

Time to crack open this beauty! Love a bit of foiling on a cover and I've heard such amazing things about this book so can't wait to get reading!

A Scandinavian crime author with a difference, Lahlum's Christie-like plots and Holmes & Watson-esque detective duo make his novels perfect for fans of golden age crime fiction (like me!). Litsy only has the first book listed but three have now been translated - this, the second, was ingenious!

This is proving to be a book that is by turns funny, astute and then 'punch you in the gut and leave you floored' honest. Lindy West has no fear of telling it like it is and, for that, I thank her.

Get past the slightly slow start and this is a magical fairy tale filled with myth and wonder. A fabulous coming-of-age novel filled with magic and adventure and with two fantastic heroines at its centre. All this, plus it's one of the most beautiful looking books I've read this year!

"We are all of us products of our surroundings. Each of us carries the map of our lives on our skin, in the way we walk, even in the way we grow."

This book is so beautifully produced - it's just gorgeous. Plus it's a cracking story too!

A tense and anxious novel that follows a tentative love affair between a young sales assistant and a sophisticated suburban housewife. Loved the 1950s setting and the slow build of tension but just couldn't get to grips with the characters sadly. Alas, I felt the film does it better with this one.

"January was a two-faced month, jangling like jester's bells, crackling like snow crust, pure as any beginning, grim as an old man, mysteriously familiar yet unknown, like a word one can almost but not quite define."